It Didn't Matter, Anyway
by Sword Pen
Summary: Four years before Inkheart, Dustfinger returns to the Folcharts' house and thinks about life, love, and what really matters. Slight DustfingerResa.


**Disclaimer: **If I owned Dustfinger, he would be rich, happy, and married to Resa.

**A/N:** I actually cried typing this fic. Please review and tell me what you think.

**Note on Time: **I couldn't figure out if this was supposed to take place 4 or 5 years before Inkheart. Does anyone know?

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**It Didn't Matter, Anyway**

He was sleeping, once again, on Silvertongue's couch. This had happened on and off for five years, whenever he felt like he couldn't breathe anymore, whenever he felt like he couldn't take one more insult from Basta.

Whenever he reminded himself that he had already given his heart away.

_No, I'm sorry, I can't, deal with it_… Dustfinger never listened to what Silvertongue said, anymore. It was always the same.

It didn't matter, anyway.

The sun hadn't risen, yet. Neither had Silvertongue or his daughter. Dustfinger scanned the room's many bookshelves. He knew what he was looking for, but he also knew he wouldn't find it.

It didn't matter, anyway.

The framed photographs on the mantelpiece caught his eye. Most were of Silvertongue's young daughter.

There was a hard lump in his throat. All his life, he had never cried. He'd never had much use for it.

It didn't matter, anyway.

Roxane, Rosanna, and Brianna… he'd never forget them. But, sometimes, he wanted to.

There was an old photograph of Resa wedged into one of the dusty frames further back. Picking it up, gently, Dustfinger studied it.

She was smiling, and there was no look of fear around her. But he imagined her laugh to be the same. There was the same golden hair, the same slender figure, the same eyes, that asked him where he was going this time…

Dustfinger surreptitiously pocketed the photograph of Resa. He'd be going far away this time. He'd promised himself. Hopefully, he'd never see Capricorn or his men again.

But could he live without seeing Resa again?

It didn't matter, anyway.

Dustfinger shook his head, telling himself for the hundredth time to close his heart. He needed no one and no one needed him.

Hadn't he proven that to himself in his own world? Hadn't he spent five years trying to prove it in this one?

Sometimes he wished that he hadn't left Roxane so often, that he had been a better husband, a better father.

It didn't matter, anyway.

Time can erase all things. Or most things. Or some things.

Dustfinger continued searching the bookshelves. How odd that he was nothing but a creature of paper and ink, that one man's voice could ruin his life.

His eyes straying back to the pictures, he thought of another life that voice had ruined. Was he only being selfish when he kept them apart? When he looked at Silvertongue and saw a tiny fraction of the pain that he himself felt every day?

Was it only about causing him pain?

It didn't matter, anyway.

Dustfinger turned determinedly back to the bookshelves, not really looking at any of the spines.

"You honestly didn't think I'd put it there, did you?" Silvertongue sounded irritated.

"Does it matter?" he asked, coldly.

Silvertongue only looked at him, as if trying to figure out all the things he hadn't said.

Dustfinger met the other man's gaze, face impassive. _Would you think I was cruel if you knew? Waking up every morning without her? Would you even consider, for a moment, that you've taken everything from me? That I wake up every morning in a different world?_

Silvertongue looked down first. He should. Should it surprise him that Dustfinger hated him for what he had done? For what he hadn't done? For who loved him?

"Come back about midday," Silvertongue said, rushing him out the door and into the early morning mist.

_Don't trust me, Silvertongue? Probably a good choice. Don't want your daughter to see me? Do you think that by forgetting, by hiding the memories away, you can erase them? _

He stepped out the door and started down the path. He heard the door shut behind him, but didn't turn.

Only when he was sure he was out of sight did he look back.

_What about me? Do you think I'll forget? Do you think it's easy for me to live with the pain of losing every thing? You, of all people, should understand._

But since when had anyone understood him? Since when had anyone tried? He watched the man and the girl (she looked so much like her mother) drive away into the fog. He knew they wouldn't be coming back.

But he'd find them again, as he always had. Even though he knew it was useless, even though he knew what answer Silvertongue was going to give him.

He'd always return. He turned on his heel and set off for another place he always went back to, even though he promised himself that he wouldn't.

Why was he really going back? Was he lying to himself when he argued that it reminded him of the world he'd lost?

It didn't matter, anyway.

As Dustfinger set off toward the place he hated and the one person who understood him, the farm workers waking up at the crack of dawn paid him no mind.

A solitary man with a tattered old backpack, a scarred face, and a pensive expression in his green eyes.

He didn't matter anyway.

As if he ever had.

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**A/N: **Here it is, folks, the hundredth Inkheart fic! Yay! Just to let you know, I may let "Credit for Capricorn" go for a while. Is there any audience for a violent, probably disturbing, T-rated-should-be-M-rated romance fic? Please let me know. :) 


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